Watching the Dark (Inspector Banks Mystery) (53 page)

Viktor Rebane died of lung cancer in Tallinn in the first week of June, just after the article appeared. His son did not appear at his funeral. The following week, a body was pulled out of the Neva river outside St Petersburg with two bullets in the head, and there was little doubt in anyone’s mind that it belonged to Joosep Rebane, a conclusion soon borne out by DNA analysis. His criminal masters had clearly taken the moral high ground when they learned that he had been responsible for the death of an innocent young woman. They had no doubt already known he was something of a liability, Banks thought, and his days had probably been numbered anyway.

Ursula Mardna came out of the whole affair triumphant, her earlier lack of vigilance forgotten, and Toomas Rätsepp was prosecuted for a number of serious offences under Estonian corruption and bribery laws.

Banks returned to his desk and picked up the three sheets of paper he had received in the post that morning, along with a brief covering note from Erik explaining that he had received the letter in response to his article, and Merike had translated it from the Russian. The quiet music, with its drifting harmonies, long notes and high strings, seemed both peaceful and tense at once. Banks sat down, sipped some lukewarm tea and read:

Dear Mr Aarma,

It was with great interest and curiosity that I read your article in a national newspaper recently, and I feel it is my duty to clarify one or two important points for you. Why now, you may ask, after so long? I have no excuses except cowardice and self-interest for not coming forward until now. You say in your article that though certain facts are clear, perhaps nobody will ever know exactly what happened at the lake house in Võrumaa on that July night six years ago. But that is not true. For, you see, I was there.

I worked at a nightclub in the Old Town of Tallinn. It had no name, and we called it simply The Club. I was sharing a flat with another young woman who worked there, a rather naïve Russian-speaking Estonian girl called Larisa, who was not at work on the night I am about to describe.

There was a crowd, or a clique, at The Club, centred around Joosep Rebane, son of Viktor, one of The Club’s owners. You refer to both these men in your article, or at least it seems to me from your descriptions that they could be nobody else. Joosep had that ‘aura of glamour’ you mention, of the movie star or rich playboy, about him. He did not work. He did not have to. He had money. He was intelligent, but not well read or educated. He had charisma, but it was laced with cruelty. He liked to humiliate people, exercise his power over them, and yet people gravitated towards him, especially women. Why? I can’t explain. I couldn’t then, and I can’t now. The excitement? The edge of danger he always seemed to generate?

On weekends, we would often congregate at The Club and then go somewhere else later. The core group was five or six strong, and sometimes others joined up with us later, came from outside the city, even from as far as St Petersburg and Riga. Sometimes Joosep would drive us all down to his lake house in Võrumaa. There we were so isolated we could do anything, and we did.

One night in July six years ago – I do not remember the exact day of the week, or the date, but your article says it happened between Saturday, 22 July and Sunday, 23 July, so I must trust you – a young girl walked into The Club just as we were about to leave. The girl was drunk. She looked lost. Joosep immediately sensed she was vulnerable, and he went to her to ask if he could help. She was just his type, a blonde vision in a short yellow dress, full lips, pale skin. I could not hear all their conversation, but soon he had persuaded her to have a drink, into which I thought later he must have put some Rohypnol, something he had done before, even when the girls were willing.

When we all went outside – there were I think five of us by then – Joosep tried to get the girl into the car. She did not want to come with us at first, but Joosep is very persuasive. The drug had not started working by then. Joosep said we would go to a party at his flat nearby for a while, and then he would drop her off at her hotel. She seemed to like this idea, or at least appeared half-willing, and Joosep bundled her into the back of the car. Then we were off. No party. No hotel. But the lake house. Võrumaa.

I do not remember much about the journey. I think the English girl whimpered a little as she realised we were leaving the city, then she fell silent. I know that Joosep had to practically carry her out of the car when we arrived, and he immediately put her in one of the outbuildings. I have no recollection of him coming back to the main building. It was after four o’clock in the morning by then and starting to get light. We were all somewhat the worse for wear. Time did not matter. We would often sleep for a few hours, then start a party at ten o’clock the following morning, or three in the afternoon, if we felt like it. Sometimes people would turn up unexpectedly, and we would have a party to welcome them. There was always lots of booze and drugs. And sex. That night I believe we smoked one joint, then everybody passed out quite quickly. There was always tomorrow.

It must have been a couple of hours later when I awoke, having heard a sound. Everyone else in the main building seemed to be still crashed out. I went to the window, which was open to the warm night air, and I heard another sound, like a muffled scream, then a gurgling sound and a fist thumping against thick wood, then silence.

Something about the sounds made my skin crawl. I ducked down, so that I could not be seen from outside. Time passed. I do not know how long. The morning light grew stronger. Then Joosep walked out of the outbuilding with a bundle in his arms. I saw the yellow dress, the little handbag hanging from her hand, one white shoe dangling.

He looked around and sniffed the air like a wild animal. I felt fear prickle through me. I thought for certain he would see me or know instinctively that I was there. But he didn’t. He looked at the lake, as if contemplating something, then carried on, walking just a few more feet to a spot near where the woods started. There was a spade propped against one of the trees for gardening, and he started digging. The girl lay on the ground beside him. I could not tell whether she was alive or not, but she did not move.

I watched Joosep dig a shallow grave, drop her body into it, and shovel back the earth, tapping down the grass sods on top to make it appear undisturbed. It didn’t, but who would care? Who would notice? Soon the turf would knit together again and it would be hidden forever.

He went back into the outbuilding, and I lay down on my mattress again trying to decide what to do. I did not think he had seen me. If he had, I reasoned, he would probably have come and killed me, too. But I could not be certain. Joosep’s mind moved in strange ways. All day he kept catching my eye and smiling. He told us that the English girl had run away during the night, and everyone just laughed. Did nobody realise there was nowhere for her to run? When Sasha decided it was time to go back to Tallinn, I asked if he would take me along as I was working at The Club that night. I could not be certain that Joosep believed me, but he let me go.

When we got to Tallinn, I went immediately to my apartment. Larisa was not there. I packed a few clothes and personal things, just one suitcase, and made sure I had my passport. I did not have a car, so I had to hitch-hike. It is not difficult if you are a reasonably attractive young woman. I soon got to Riga, then Vilnius, then Minsk, then . . . But that is where my story ends.

Please do not try to find me. I am sorry for what I did, or did not do. That night has haunted me ever since. There was nothing I could have done to save the English girl, except perhaps run into the outbuilding and try to stop Joosep. But no one can make Joosep change his mind once it is made up, and he is much bigger and stronger than me. Perhaps I could have told my story sooner to spare her friends and family the agony of not knowing. I hope you will understand why I felt I could not do that until I read your story.

Juliya K.

Banks folded the sheets, put them back in the envelope and massaged his temples. ‘The Wanderer’s Evening Song’ was playing now, and Banks let the strange choral harmonies flow over him for a few moments. As he did so, his mind went back to Rachel’s funeral in late May, the crowded crematorium, hordes of media outside with their hand-held cameras and boom microphones, oblivious to everyone’s pain and loss. As the coffin slipped away, Coldplay’s ‘Fix You’ had played over the music system. It had been Rachel’s favourite song around the time of the hen weekend, her best friend Pauline said.

Banks went with Annie to the funeral tea afterwards at the Hewitts’ house, where they sipped Harvey’s Bristol Cream and ate little triangular sandwiches with the crusts cut off. The media were consigned to the pavement beyond the garden gate, though occasionally an adventurous reporter managed to sneak closer and press his nose up against the window behind the lace curtains.

Banks managed to get Maureen Hewitt alone for a few moments, though her daughter Heather stuck close to her. The young girl made a ghostly presence, pale-skinned, dressed wholly in black, and Banks didn’t recollect her ever saying a word. Her expression remained unchanging, too, a sort of blank grief mixed with anxiety, as if she were always on the verge of tears, or of jumping up and running away.

Maureen Hewitt thanked Banks for getting to the bottom of the mystery of her daughter’s disappearance and assured him that, while she and her husband were devastated that they had not been right about Rachel still being alive, all their lives were much better for the sense of closure that knowing the truth brought. Banks assured Maureen, as best he could, that her daughter’s death had been quick and painless, that she had died of a drug overdose on the very night she had disappeared, probably without regaining consciousness. Maureen refused to accept that her daughter would take drugs willingly, and Banks told her that they were probably administered without her knowledge, though he had no real evidence of this at the time. It helped Maureen a little. She said that she and her husband would continue with the foundation and its work for the sake of all the other missing children out there.

Pauline, the would-be bride at the hen weekend, was the only one of Rachel’s old friends to turn up. She had clearly had too much to drink, even before she arrived. Her voice soon became too loud, and when she smashed a glass, Mr Hewitt had a quiet word with her. She left in tears. Banks and Annie made their excuses and left shortly afterwards.

Banks looked at the envelope one more time, then he got up, put it in his filing cabinet and walked over to the window again. Juliya’s letter and the questions it begged would still haunt him tomorrow, and the day after that. For the moment, though, it was a beautiful late afternoon, the best of the year so far. The tables were fast filling up outside the Queen’s Arms, reminding him of the Old Town in Tallinn, and he wanted nothing more than to sit by himself with a cold beer in the cobbled market square and watch the world go by.

Acknowledgements

Quite a lot of this book takes place in Tallinn, so first of all, my special thanks to Karen Root, who read the manuscript at an early stage and corrected my Estonian errors. If the Estonian sections ring more true now, it is because of Karen, and if they don’t, it is entirely my fault. I would also like to thank my Course Director Krista Mits for sharing her insights into Estonian history and culture, and my students Daniel Vaarik and Anna-Magdaleena Kangro for their wide-ranging conversation on matters Estonian. Also, a big thank you to my students, who all brought something to the experience of writing this book, and were an inspiration: Berit Kaschan, Gunilla Rosengren, Siret Kork, Tana Collins, Kaidi Laur, Adrienn Jankovich and Helen Kalpus. I would also like to thank the Canadian Ambassador to the Baltic States and his wife for the use of their beautiful apartment while I was teaching in Tallinn.

At Hodder & Stoughton, my thanks go to Carolyn Mays, Francesca Best and Katy Rouse in Editorial, and beyond them to Kerry Hood and Jaime Frost in Publicity, and to Lucy Hale and the formidable Hodder production and sales force. Thanks also to Justine Taylor for her thorough copy-editing. At William Morrow, I thank Carolyn Marino and Wendy Lee in Editorial and Laurie Connors in Publicity, along with the Morrow production team and sales reps. At McClelland and Stewart, thanks to Kendra Ward and Ellen Seligman for their editing, Ashley Dunn in Publicity (along with freelance Debby de Groot), and Doug Pepper for the oysters and stout and so much more. Thanks also to the McClelland & Stewart/Random House sales and productions teams. I would also like to thank my agents Dominick Abel and David Grossman for their continued support. Last but not least, I would like to thank Sheila Halladay for being my first reader, as always, and for making so many useful suggestions at a time when they were probably the last thing I wanted to hear.